Tag Archives: Dale Farm

With the spotlight on the imminent eviction of residents from Dale Farm, a large, illegal Gypsy and Traveller site in Essex, will councils face even greater community opposition to developing sites in the future?

Examples of good-practice sites may be less headline-grabbing, but there are perhaps lessons to be learned when it comes to building trust and co-operation within communities.

Experts on Gypsy and Traveller issues have praised Fenland Council in March, Cambridgeshire, for developing positive relations with the travelling community and fostering a general acceptance of Gyspies and Travellers by the settled community.

Unlike other councils in the East of England, Fenland has only a small number of sites without planning permission, which is key to avoiding community tensions like those at Dale Farm.

The other day I visited Dale Farm in Crays Hill, Essex, allegedly the largest illegal Traveller site in Europe.

It was pouring down with rain and the place looked deserted. A resident with a young girl and dog in tow eyed my car with suspicion, but her face softened when I wound down my window and told her I was there to see Mary-Ann McCarthy.

The Dublin-born site matriarch waved from her doorstep and welcomed me in. Her mobile home looked as neat as a pin and the living room was plush with a cream leather suite and large dried flower displays.

Mary-Ann McCarthy: At home on Dale Farm

Mary-Ann, 70, has lived on the site for 10 years, which now houses three generations of her family. She insisted that the Travellers don’t want to break the law but they have nowhere else to go.

Death threats and police escorts

I also met Len Gridley, 52, whose one-and-a-half acres of garden backs onto the Dale Farm site. He said his outspoken opposition to the site has led to death threats and he is given a police escort home after council meetings.

He showed me aerial-view photographs of the site that stretch back to 2001 when the first eight families arrived and put up fencing and hardstandings without planning permission. Now there are 51 plots and 86 families and Basildon Council is expected to serve a 28-day eviction notice at any time.

Mr Gridley said he doesn’t blame the Travellers in spite of the intimidation he’s experienced. He suggested Basildon Council is at fault for not nipping the illegal site development in the bud all those years ago.

It all started with a disgruntled scrap merchant

It’s interesting that it all started with a disgruntled scrap merchant who warned the council that he would sell his land to the Travellers, if he didn’t get the planning permission he wanted. He wasn’t joking.

One wonders why it has taken a decade to get the go-ahead on an eviction that may cost the tax payer as much as £18million. Such is the nature of planning law:the process can take so long if you’re determined to fight it every step of the way.

But the problem is that it isn’t just a simple planning application. It’s actually a small settlement with none of the attributes required of one: no road infrastructure and no water, sewer or power networks. These could cost a lot more than £18million, even if it was a suitable place to locate such a settlement, and who would pay for that?

“Those who write and speak of Gypsies and Travellers often do not know them, and therefore do not often present a complete or balanced picture,” wrote Dr Rachel Morris in a paper for the Traveller Law Research Unit (TLRU).

Dr Morris was referring to the press who, she suggested, “represent Travellers in a stereotypical and prejudicial fashion.” That was 11 years ago.

I’ve tried tracking down Dr Morris, a job made harder because the TLRU at Cardiff Law School was disbanded in 2002 and now just exists as an online information portal. Rumour has it that she is now overseas.

As a journalism student investigating some of the issues around Gypsy and Traveller sites, I’d be interested to know what Dr Morris thinks 11 years on.

The bedrock of ethical journalism

Balance, impartiality, objectivity and use of a varied range of sources are, we students have learned, the bedrock of ethical journalism, although one can debate until the cows come home the question of how 100 per cent impartial or objective a journalist can ever be.

As I work on my journalism project for my Masters degree at Bournemouth University, I’m forever questioning the balance of what I’m presenting. I think my chosen topic is complex and emotive and there are always two sides to the story. Are both sides of the argument being given an equal voice though? It’s no easy task. Campaigners for Gypsies and Travellers are obviously willing to talk but gypsies and travellers themselves are cooler customers. Is that because of years of negative press coverage, perhaps?

An axe to grind

Then there’s the other side – people who have an axe to grind about Gypsy and Traveller sites. Maybe they’ve had negative experiences themselves, particularly of illegal sites, or fear the potential impact that a proposed site could have on their house value and their local amenities and environment. If they’re willing to talk, it’s often on the condition that they’re not named.

That said, public feeling is vented freely online. One only has to look at comments posted in response to news stories about illegal sites where people feel safe in saying what they really think behind the relative anonymity of a username. The Gypsy and Traveller voice is conspicuously missing from those comment forums.

“A somewhat objective truth”

Dr Morris ended her paper with what seems an obvious point – that journalists “owe it to themselves and to their profession to try and set standards and seek a somewhat objective truth.”

That’s my goal for this project. Follow me over the next month or so and tell me whether you think I’ve achieved it. It would be good to know.

“We’ll stand in the way, they’ll have to drive over us with their bulldozers. Some people say they’ll put their limbs at risk.

“This is going to inevitably traumatise children and there are certainly old folk who won’t be able to survive out on the road, so lives are at risk,” he added.

Mr Puxon suggested that Basildon Council was “making no exceptions” for vulnerable people, in spite of being given a report with residents’ medical histories.

A mother with triplets on Dale Farm, Essex

“There’s an old man who’s literally bed-ridden, another man of 80-years-old, a young woman who’s just had a miscarriage (and) a young mother with triplets. All that has been pushed aside,” he said.

Basildon Council “fully aware of its duties”

But Lorraine Browne, legal services manager for Basildon Council, said the council “has always been fully aware of its duties and responsibilities towards the families and individuals who would be the subject of direct action to secure compliance with planning enforcement notices.”

The council would “seek to minimise the impact of the eviction process (and) provide practical and sustained support for those families affected,” she added.

Essex Police Authority will cover the first £2.5m cost of policing the eviction, with the next £2.4m shared equally between the Home Office and Basildon Council. If more funds are needed, the Home Office will pay another £2.3m and the remainder will be split between Essex Police Authority and the Home Office.

“No individual or group is above the law”

Basildon & Billericay MP John Baron said:“This funding sends a clear message that no one individual or group is above the law. Once again, I urge the travellers at the illegal Dale Farm site to now move off peacefully, as no one wants to see the misery of a forced eviction.”

Mr Puxon said the residents had submitted planning applications for two alternative sites in the area and “that’s the avenue we want to go down.”

“But if they spring an eviction on us, we have to protect our homes and the right of our children to go to school (and) defend our farm by non-violent means,” he added.

“I don’t know what to do with my life. My life is upside down because all my things are squashed, me (sic) home has gone. I had a big place and they squashed it to the ground.”

Mary Jones*, 51, was forcibly evicted from a Gypsy and Traveller site in Essex last summer. She had lived at Hovefield for nine years but, like other gypsies and travellers, she was there without planning permission.

A shortage of authorised developments – where planning permission has been granted – means Gypsies and Travellers often have nowhere else to go once evicted. Children’s education is often disrupted and registering with a GP becomes more difficult for people on the move.

Now there are fears that a new law could make it harder for Gypsies and Travellers to find somewhere permanent to live.

The Coalition Government’s proposed Localism Bill aims to give more power and responsibility to local councils and communities for planning decisions. This includes tougher action against people who abuse planning laws.

Regional spatial strategies, the previous government’s system for determining where new developments should be in each part of the country, will also be scrapped. A ‘top-down’ approach only makes people “feel put upon and less likely to welcome new development,” says the Coalition.

Carrot or stick?

But according to planning consultant and New Traveller Simon Ruston, councils need some sort of “stick” to compel them to provide Gypsy and Traveller sites. Scrapping regional spatial strategies places less onus on councils to act, especially if it means keeping votes, he says.

“Local government notoriously doesn’t have the political leadership. You get a few councils where you get some brave people who actually stand up and say ‘Right, sort this out’, but no local councillor in their right mind is going to want to stick up for travellers.”

Matthew Brindley, policy and research officer for the Irish Travellers Movement in Britain, also believes “it is a no-go area for a lot of politicians and ministers to touch on Gypsy and Traveller issues.”

“We’re not adverse to localism but the core issue here is that the majority of objections against gypsy and traveller sites occur at the local level (and) it makes it very hard for local planning authorities to fulfill their statutory duties to provide accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers,” he adds.

Brindley cites Dale Farm in Crays Hill, Essex, allegedly the largest Gypsy and Traveller site in Europe, where alternative sites are being sought for more than 80 families facing eviction by Basildon District Council from an unauthorised development. According to Brindley, there were 1200 objections from the local community for a planning application on alternative land, which highlights the issue councils face.

Children play outside their caravans at Dale Farm, Essex (Copyright all photos: Susan Craig-Greene)

“How do you work with councillors who might have the best intentions in the world but come up against these staunch objections? They face this terrible decision of getting re-elected or losing the support of their constituents by upholding equality and human rights legislation.”

Councils not off the hook

But Tony Cooke, housing standards manager for South Norfolk Council, argues that the Localism Bill and the scrapping of ‘top-down’ targets does not mean councils will be let off the hook when it comes to Gypsy and Traveller site provision.

“The government is still making it quite clear that local authorities have to assess what the need is and have to meet that need in the same way they have to with affordable housing, and providing affordable housing gives rise to a lot of local opposition and yet for local authorities it’s part of their duties to see that it’s delivered,” he says.

At the last government count of Gypsy and Traveller caravans in July 2010, there were 3,636 on unauthorised sites, about 20 per cent of the gypsy and traveller caravan-dwelling population. Gypsy and Traveller communities are often the focus of social tension, particularly on unauthorised land, and the cost of clearing illegal developments can run into millions. The solution seems obvious.

“The only way you’re going to overcome this is by getting more authorised sites – ones that might be provided by local authorities or housing associations to rent, but also (by) helping families who’ve got the money and resources to develop sites to find suitable land,” says Cooke.

But no matter how authorised land is provided, it could take years to meet the site shortage and it remains to be seen how localism will influence future planning decisions.

Localism in practice

Terry Heselton is planning policy manager at Selby District Council where a major public consultation is underway about planning strategy, including Gypsy and Traveller sites, for the next 15 years. He thinks the spirit of localism is going to be hard to deliver in practice.

“The difficulty is going to be how you can balance local opinion – which nine times out of ten is going to be anti-development whether that’s for market housing, affordable housing or special housing for Gyspsies and Travellers – with the need to actually build more houses. The two don’t fit very comfortably together.”

Heselton suggests that residents’ expectations about empowerment promised by the new Bill may be thwarted by pressure on councils to meet housing and site shortages.

“There’s an aspiration that local communities can decide whether they have more housing or not (but) that’s unlikely to be the case as long as there’s still a need for housing.

“It’s a racing certainty that if we did a survey of all the parishes in our area, there would be very few of them saying they’re quite happy to take more developments, so on that basis where do you put those developments?

“Someone has to decide and that someone is normally the local council through the planning system, so there will still be clashes and the Gypsy and Traveller issue is no different.”

“A very emotive subject”

Lib Dem peer Lord Avebury, a campaigner for Gypsy and Traveller rights, believes objections to sites is not a simple matter of planning law.

“When people say they’re breaking planning regulations, that isn’t the true reason for the hostility towards gypsies and travellers – that’s a cloak. They are the only ethnic minority about whom anyone feels they can be completely racist.”

Heselton admits Gypsy and Traveller sites is “a very emotive subject” amongst communities and can trigger “a fairly hysterical reaction when there’s just the merest hint of a proposal.”

Although Selby District Council has yet to put forward proposals for specific Gypsy and Traveller sites, hundreds of residents have still raised concerns around traffic noise, extra pressures on amenities, increased crime and declining property values, which they fear such sites would cause.

One local resident, who did not want to be named, says that several Gypsy and Traveller sites in the Hillam and Monk Fryston areas of Selby have been set up by stealth without planning permission.

“As soon as they move into an area, the crime goes up (and) there’s litter, rubbish and burned out cars. People just can’t be allowed to flout the law just because they come from small and ethnic or disadvantaged group. It’s not desperation, it’s carefully-calculated exploitation,” he adds.

But Heselton can see two sides to the argument.

“Quite often some of the more organised ones will deliberately move onto a site on a bank holiday when there are no councils open and the police are probably engaged, policing a whole range of events – it’s no coincidence that they do that. Of course, that then upsets people because they feel they’ve been deliberately targeted and they’re abusing the law.

“The other side of the coin is that (Gypsies and Travellers) will argue that if (they) don’t do that and go through the normal planning procedure, then (they are) always going to get the thumbs down.”

While battle lines continue to be drawn over planning decisions, Mary Jones is looking for somewhere else to settle down.

“I’m embarrassed because at this time in my life I don’t have a home and that’s all we wanted – just to have our own place, to have our children come and visit us and have a bit of comfort.”